


Guild

by KarkaHatchlings



Series: Guild Wars 2 Interstitial [15]
Category: Guild Wars 2 (Video Game), Guild Wars Series (Video Games)
Genre: Conversations, F/F, Fluff, Slice of Life, Tickling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-06
Updated: 2018-11-06
Packaged: 2019-08-19 20:14:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16541441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KarkaHatchlings/pseuds/KarkaHatchlings
Summary: A pair of sylvari are caught in the rain and guild rivalry.





	Guild

The pair paused under the eaves of a shop while the rain washed down in sudden, more intense sheets.  Drips leaked through the split boards; their shelter was an overturned rowboat and the seams hadn’t been tarred in decades.  Peeling blue paint advertised lanterns. One of the pair, smaller, leaned heavily on the other who bore it standing upright and tall.

A drop of water splashed one broad, long leaf of Aisling’s foliage.  Her companion watched it roll, sparkling in the lamplight of the window at their backs, into the leaf’s vein.  There it caught the vein's own sunny glow and slid down to the tip. The smaller sylvari groaned in protest, though the petal skin of her face was already shining with raindrops.  “Wet.”

Hilde let her slump against her shoulder, well-used to the dramatic complaints.  Aisling was vocal in each of her moods. “Hush, we’re halfway back to the room.” Across the inlet from where they’d come, the lights of the Lion’s Shadow glowed, the first in a chain of stars along the shore.  Deverol Island, Fort Marriner, the lighthouse.

“Too far,” Aisling nestled against her and drape loose arms over her shoulders like a child begging to be carried.

“Too much mead,” rebuked Hilde, but gently.  She was feeling the effects somewhat herself.  The droplet of water, still clinging to the tip of its leaf, blew clear of her companion’s mantle when she puffed a breath over it.

“Don’t,” the daffodil-colored sylvari mumbled, “tickles.”  She shook her head slowly and her wet foliage rattled. When her cleft face lifted from her friend’s shoulder, it was creased in an uncharacteristic frown.

“Did you pay?”

“The drinks were all free,” Hilde reassured. Sometimes her companion forgot, but she always took care of it. “Some guild, a trading company, was buying for everyone.”

A shadow, the frown deepening from petulant to something more genuine, passed over Aisling’s normally bright face. “Guilds.”

“Guilds,” she repeated when Hilde remained silent. Her friend would talk, she knew. A child of Dawn couldn’t resist, and a child of Night could but listen. Aisling’s veins glowed golden with emotion. “Always fighting.”

“The human guilds nearly destroyed the world once,” agreed the taller of the pair, content to wait in their shelter while the squall passed, “that’s what they say.”

“Precisely!” The excitement in her voice tugged at Hilde, just like it always had. “Groups of people. We could accomplish anything together but we resist that. It took over a century for something like the Pact to form against a threat to the whole world.”

“Where there are groups, there are rivalries,” interjected Hilde, “our guild’s no different.” Despite Aisling’s angry glow, she looked slight, huddled away from the rain, her face and expensive robes spotted with water. The bark-rough hand Hilde extended to draw her back, to support her, was pushed away.

“Don’t placate me,” her normally thin voice sounded like a lash, “why is that? Even among our own siblings you see it. Warden, Courtier… Soundless. And who are we? In a guild with others unlike us. We still heed the Dream, but are we against the others because we are not with them?”

“Of course not!” The idea was horrible, and she couldn’t think how Aisling’s agile mind would come to it.

“But aren’t we?  How many times have we had to step in when the Wardens failed?” demanded her smaller kin, extending a long, slender finger in admonition even as she shrank away, “are we fighting Faolain’s lackeys in the Arbor, or are they?  There’s that rivalry.”

Her friend’s agitation left Hilde disquieted in turn.  She felt more like a wind-tossed branch than a steadfast trunk.  “Aisling, competition doesn’t have to mean enmity.”

The other snorted.  “And yet enemies our guild has plenty of.  Then they become ours. For what? For trying to help, because our guild took the glory once or twice.  For… other things. Perhaps they’re justified sometimes. We’re no better, are we, we’re just part of the posturing, the fighting, the chaos.”  Her viridian eyes flashed.

Hilde stood stock-still, letting the stormy tirade wash over her.  Rain pattered on rooftops and the canals in between. She knew her orange glow was standing out in her dark features, just as Aisling’s blazed down her delicate throat and along her bare forearms.  Her oak-hued limbs were strong, hardened and roughened by training and war, and she bent them at all times to protect her friend. This discomfort, though, she had no ready shield to raise against.

“So we don’t embrace that enmity,” careful thought shaped the words.  Her bright sister’s voice was a far more practiced weapon than her own.  “We do what we will. We work with those who will have us, and refuse those who would be rivals.  Let those who think ill do so, but offer no further cause.”

Aisling glared forest green but wilted in the end, giving way to the evening of mead and the long day of travel it had followed.  “Always so strong, so dignified,” she teased tiredly and leaned into her sturdier friend once more, “loyal. Collected. Hilde.” The last syllables tripping from her mouth were punctuated with a prodding finger in Hilde’s side.

The other squirmed despite herself.  Aisling knew where to poke, digging into softer fiber beneath the tough and glossy leaves of outer garment.  “Mm?” the slighter sylvari grinned and jabbed again experimentally.

Another squirm.  Hilde tried to cover the sensitive spot with a bark-rough hand.  “Stop that,” she chided, but the jabs were too fast, above, below, always where her hand was not.

“Hm?  Stop this?”

Hilde backed away out into the evening rain and Aisling pursued, doubling her over with a well-timed finger to her stomach.  “Stop or I’ll…” Involuntary mirth bubbled up, low and throaty when she gave it voice.

“You’ll…?” giggled Aisling, not letting up for a moment, “you’ll what?”  Daybreak slowly returned to her face. She squealed in mock dismay when the other sylvari finally caught her hand as it darted in for another assault.

Emotion filling her chest with fluttering wings and tying her tongue, Hilde just wrapped her companion up in an embrace and laughed, letting the downpour soak them both.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted in /gw2g/.
> 
> Events and locations referenced here correspond to in-game events and locations: prior to the destruction of Lion's Arch in Scarlet's War, there was a Lion's Shadow inn. Reference is made to exchanging in-game currency for guild upgrade currency.
> 
> Characters represented here were not created by me.


End file.
